


A Walk into Echoing Ruins

by MegumitheGreat



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Children shenanigans, Feel-good, M/M, Mikleo and Sorey are adorable, My First Work in This Fandom, Pre-Canon, Side-quest dialogue, Suspense, There might be a spoiler?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-08 18:27:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7768465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegumitheGreat/pseuds/MegumitheGreat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on side-quest dialogue where someone brought up that Sorey and Mikleo started exploring when they were wee lads and apparently turned the Mabinogio Ruins into a playground.  I thought it was pretty cute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Into the Mabinogio Ruins

**Author's Note:**

> My first submitted fanfic ever! :D

Not long after their fifth “birthday”, two starry-eyed boys decided to venture past the boundary of their home that was the (proclaimed) mythical village of Elysia. Sorey, the taller of the two, was a human with wild chestnut-colored hair. His big green eyes actively searched for adventure and had been since he was old enough to walk. His partner in crime was the shyer and smaller Mikleo. His hair was snow white with cerulean ends and amethyst eyes that looked up to Sorey as an older brother. As a budding water seraph, however, he wasn’t very strong on his own, and his training wouldn’t formally begin until he was a few years older. Their adoptive grandfather, appropriately and affectionately just called Gramps, was more focused on teaching them to be good children instead of trouble-making ragamuffins. Of course, trying to stop them from being curious was harder than he thought.

Gramps repeatedly told the boys that going outside the village was dangerous, especially in the case of the Mabinogio Ruins. Hellions—beings that become so filled with malevolence that they transformed into demons—ran amok in those ruins. If anyone got lost or stuck in the ruins, the entire village would form a massive search team. Since Mikleo and Sorey were now the youngest residents, Gramps implored his people to keep an eye on them.

When Mikleo and Sorey had set out to explore the ruins, they had been looking at the pictures in the Celestial Record. This book archived points of interest—mostly ruins—that were beyond their imagination. The two waited till nightfall that day when the other seraphim in the village had gone to bed. They waited for Gramps to finish his bedtime smoke out of his golden pipe and doze off near his fire pit. After guaranteeing that the coast was clear, they put on their smocks that had been handmade and given as gifts from others in the village. Sorey dragged along a satchel he prepared over the past few days while Mikleo held onto the Celestial Record. He knew that Sorey treasured the book, and he vowed to protect it with his life.

“Sorey, we should take a blanket,” the water seraph whispered.

“Why? We’re not going to sleep there! Gramps would get really mad if we did!” Sorey somewhat protested.

“But what if we find something in the ruins that’s in the book? The dirt and rocks on our clothes would get us in trouble.”

“I guess you’re right. We’ll take mine.”

Now with everything they need—an oil lantern, a blanket, a few snacks, and the Celestial Record—they snuck out of Gramps’s house and ran towards the village arch. Once they crossed the threshold, they felt more vulnerable to whatever waited beyond the safety of Elysia. Mikleo almost immediately wanted to turn back, but Sorey held his hand and offered him a smile. They walked through the woods where prickleboars were quietly sleeping in pods under the trees. Awestruck, they looked up the small animals. Next were the crumbling walls that may have been some sort of passage to the ruins. Finally they arrived at the entrance to the ruins.

“Aw, man, is this it? It’s just a big, dumb rock,” Sorey pouted.

“Sorey, look! The steps—they go down! Maybe the Nagimobia Ruins is under us!” Mikleo replied. There was some infectious excitement in his voice which caused Sorey to perk up. The steps were weathered and covered in bits of moss but did indeed lead down. The two boys took careful steps down, the light of the moon above waning the deeper they went.

“Don’t slip, okay, Mikleo?” Sorey told his brother-figure.

When they reached the first major room of the ruins, they couldn’t believe their eyes. The fact that grass and herbs and even small trees could grow in complete darkness was a new idea to them, and they immediately set out to identify each plant they found.

The room that they had arrived seemed to be the majority of the ruins as far as they knew without looking at the book. There were small idols along the walls and a large fearsome one that hid the steps leading back to the surface. In some corners of the room and the winding halls, giant spider webs blocked the way. Mikleo made every effort he could to stay away from them, but Sorey urged him to keep going deeper.

“Mikleo, come look at this!” Sorey occasionally called.

“Sorey, look what I found!” Mikleo giggled.

By now they had ventured into the smaller rooms far away from the entrance. It was about time for a break, so the children found a spot by a mossy wall. Sorey opened the satchel and pulled out a couple of apples and peaches for him and Mikleo while the latter spread out the blanket. They took off their shoes before sitting down and looked at the Celestial Record.

“The Mabinogio Ruins date back to the Era of…” Mikleo read aloud. He came to a name he didn’t know how to pronounce. “Sorey, how do you say this?”

“The Era of Asgard! That’s when the good guys fought with seraphim to fight against the monsters that Gramps told us about!” Sorey said enthusiastically.

“Why would the good guys fight with seraphim? Aren’t seraphim and humans friends?” Mikleo asked. “I don’t want to fight with you, Sorey. You’re my friend.”

“No, the good guys were seraphim and…and shippers! No, Shepherds! They fought all kinds of bad guys!”

“I still don’t get it.”

“Mikleo, wouldn’t it be so cool if we could fight together? We would be so strong! And we could find ruins together and we would get to stay up late and eat ice cream all the time!”

Mikleo offered a sheepish smile. “But we can’t fight. We don’t have swords or anything.”

Sorey located a pair of sticks across the room. He ran off to grab them, placing one in Mikleo’s hand when he returned. Then he pulled him up to stand. “I am the mighty Shepherd, and you’re my seraph! You’re my best seraph and no one can beat us because we’re super strong!”

The tiny brunet tapped the side of his friend’s stick like a toy sword, going on about starting training. Mikleo indulged in his rambunctiousness and parried as much as he could. The two went at it as much as they could, and soon enough, their arms were too exhausted to swing their makeshift weapons. The fruit they had just eaten had been digested, and as a result they were hungry once again.

“Do you think we should eat more?” Mikleo asked.

“I don’t know…I’m hungry, but I didn’t bring a lot of food. If we don’t think about it, it’ll go away, though!” Sorey definitively said. They packed up the blanket and the lantern before heading even deeper into the ruins. While Sorey’s attitude kept the morale up, the two couldn’t help but focus on their growling stomachs. “Not thinking doesn’t work…”

Mikleo leaned against one of the walls. He was silent, which made Sorey nervous. Was he going to pass out? Was he going to die?! “I have an idea!” Mikleo finally said. “Let’s hunt for treasure!”

“Good idea! The Shepherd has to find treasure! Come on, Royal Water Seraph!” Sorey announced, his voice echoing down the halls as he ran ahead.

“I’m not royal! I’m loyal!” Mikleo corrected as he chased after Sorey into the darkness.

***

Gramps woke up with a stiff back. He decided to stretch his short stumpy legs by checking up on his boys. The fire in the pit had fizzled down to just glowing embers; the water in the pot now ice-cold. He sighed. He had promised himself to stop leaving the fire going at night for fear of the boys trying to play with it.

“Bah, they’re smart kids. They wouldn’t do something so silly…” he chuckled. He shuffled slowly to his bookcases where Sorey and Mikleo typically fell asleep. Tens and tens of books lay open on the floor. One about the powers of the elements, one about the plants, another about the animals, one about recipes for iced treats—all sorts of topics he bequeathed to them in hopes of keeping their thirst for knowledge alive. He was particularly worried about Sorey; a human in a seraphic village was a huge pill for his people to swallow those years ago. They wanted to leave him behind and only take Mikleo, but Gramps had his reasons and therefore was completely against leaving one for dead over the other. He still remembered one of his favorite moments when he took care of them. He had set them down to sleep one night after a rough day of protecting the village with his domain from hellions and outsiders alike while tending to their every need. After going to make a cup of tea for himself, he came back to find that the two held each other’s hands in their sleep. It was then he knew they could not be separated. Every once in a while, however, he imagined what would have happened if Sorey was found by a human had he chosen to leave him behind. He was a pure child, but would he have been so pure with humans?

“I’m sure Mikleo would have eventually found out and grown to hate everyone if we abandoned him. He would have turned into a hellion right away…” Gramps sighed. He regained his touch with reality—he had adopted both of them to keep a promise, and he was adamant about keeping them together as long as he could before curiosity got the better of them. He looked around the ground. Sorey’s blanket was gone. So was his bag, the oil lantern, even the Celestial Record! Gramps ran throughout his two-room house, but neither child could be found. He came outside, scanning the field with desperate eyes where the other seraphim congregated throughout the day. They weren’t there! How could he have let them disappear like that!

“Everyone!” he bellowed, hobbling and banging on their doors to their makeshift houses. “Please, everyone, wake up! This is an emergency! Wake up!” The other seraphim of the village groggily came out of their hovels, sleepy-eyed and disheveled from tossing and turning. “Sorey and Mikleo have disappeared!”

“What?!” Natalie cried out.

“We have to form a search party immediately!” Mason ordered.

“Leave no stone unturned!” Kyme joined.

As everyone prepared to join the search, Gramps battled his own helpless feelings. How could he have—no, there was no point in wallowing in despair. His boys needed him, and he was going to do everything in his power to make sure they were safe.


	2. The Search Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zenrus is panicking, but the kids are having a dandy time until they start thinking about Survival 101.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 was already 50% done by now, so I figured I'd take this momentum to finish it up and start thinking about Chapter 3. We don't know much about their lives as kids, but assuming that Sorey and Mikleo have always had a thirst for knowledge, it would make sense they'd have every topic available to them, right? And they seem pretty smart? Well, Mikleo does.

Gramps had gone into the woods southeast to Elysia first. He called for their names in hopes that they would come out of hiding for themselves. Mason and Natalie divided the villages into two squadrons. One squadron went with Gramps and the other went to the edge of Gramps’s domain.

“Zenrus, I don’t want to cause you unnecessary worry, but—…” Gramps cut Natalie off. “What’s wrong?”

“A bigger problem. It seems that because of this entire hubbub, a hellion managed to squeeze itself into my domain,” Gramps said. “We need to find them before it does.”

“Natalie, you’re not thinking that…” another seraph trailed off.

“It’s possible that they went to the Mabinogio Ruins.”

Gramps tensed up. It was getting worse with each passing second—forget the hellion that broke into the domain; the hellions in the ruins were more dangerous.

Meanwhile, Sorey and Mikleo had found a small pool of water to drink from. The fruit had hydrated them, but thanks to the play-fighting, they sweated it out. The only other sources of nourishment in the satchel were some slices of bread, crackers; and a cookie that Meriwether, another seraph, had made for them.

After they had drunk some of the water, they looked around. “Sorey, I don’t think we should stay here…” Mikleo timidly said. He took Sorey’s hand in an attempt to calm himself, but seeing that it really didn’t do anything for him, the brunet patted the head of snow-white hair. “Do you think Gramps will be mad?”

“No way, because we’re gonna show him brave we are! Don’t worry, Mikleo, the Shepherd will protect you!” Sorey beamed.

“But isn’t the seraph supposed to protect the Shepherd?”

The two boys stared at each other for a few seconds before bursting into laughter. When they had finished, Sorey just smiled at Mikleo. He was happy that the little seraph was feeling better. They were the same age in a way, but the former couldn’t help but feel the need to protect his friend from the hellions should they arrive. It was after this realization that he noticed Mikleo didn’t look so well.

“What’s wrong?”

“I feel sleepy…”

Sorey placed his satchel next to the pool they had drunk from, took the Celestial Record and place it carefully on top of it, and spread the blanket out on the damp stone ground. Then he placed the satchel and book on the corner so that it was a makeshift pillow and the oil lantern next to the blanket. Mikleo lay down on the little bed his friend prepared.

“Is it okay?”

“Mm-hmm…but wait! If I sleep, you’ll get scared!” Mikleo panicked.

“Those stupid hellions can’t get me! I’ll fight them off! You just sleep, got it?” Sorey triumphantly said.

“No, I want to fight, too! The seraph has to take care of the Shepherd!” Mikleo pouted.

Sorey furrowed his brow. He argued that Mikleo should just sleep, but Mikleo was completely against sleeping. Go to sleep, stay awake, go to sleep, stay awake—eventually the two kids got tired of arguing and sat with their backs turned to each other.

“You’re being dumb!” Mikleo said.

“You’re being a meanie head!” Sorey replied.

“Well, you’re being dumber!”

“You’re a bigger meanie head!”

“You’re dumberer!

“Biggerer meanie head!”

They bickered back and forth until there was a sound. A sort of skittering across stone that sent chills up their spines. They forgot about their fight, hugging each other in fear. The lantern, burning its last few drops of oil, dimmed and fizzled out. There they were, alone in the darkness with nothing to protect them.

“We…We have to find the treasure…we should go…” Mikleo stuttered.

“But there’s something there…” Sorey whispered.

After his eyes adjusted to the darkness, the seraph looked around for the source of the skittering. He looked above them and found countless beady green eyes staring down at them from the ceiling. He slowly moved while keep the eyes in his sight. He carefully moved the book into the satchel and quietly took the lantern into his hand. Sorey, at first confused, followed suit as he slowly stood up and bundled up the blanket. So far, so good. Whatever those things were, they hadn’t detected any movement. The only problem was that there was nowhere to go that would take them right to the surface.

Sorey took a step towards the hall they came from, but with the blanket in such disarray, he tripped on the corner of it. He scraped his knees on the ground, letting out a yelp that was louder than he was expecting. The green eyes one the ceiling suddenly fell down as a swarm on top of them.

“S-Sorey, they’re spider hellions! We have to run!” Mikleo yelled. Neither of them was willing to let go of the luggage they had brought with them, yet they knew if they didn’t, they would surely be sucked dry by the giant arachnoid demons. Furthermore, they couldn’t afford to lose the Celestial Record since it was their only way of getting out of the depths of the ruins. Sorey ran past Mikleo, who stopped and turned with his arm extended out. He focused as hard as he could on his immature power over water, showing no fear that a horde of hungry monsters was charging towards him. “Twin Flow!”

A blue light surrounded Mikleo as a bubbling blob of water formed from his hand which grew slowly. He was ready to launch it at the center of the horde, but just as he was about to released his attack, the bubble burst. The energy that was stored within it pushed Mikleo back and made him crash into Sorey. The water seraph was prepared to try again and would have if Sorey didn’t pull him along to a small crawlspace big enough for them only. They left the spiders behind as they arrived to what seemed to be a secret room where a few herbs struggled to thrive on the drops of water coming from above.

The two boys took this chance to recuperate after the stampede, and while they were breathless, Sorey couldn’t help but ogle over Mikleo as he harvested the herbs. “That was so cool, Mikleo! How did you do that? I wanna learn how to command water! Do you think Gramps will teach me?” he excitedly asked. Mikleo puffed out his chest with his fists on his hips to bask in the glory of almost casting a seraphic arte. He was about to give some sort of speech about how awesome he was but his legs buckled underneath him. As he collapsed, the young brunet grabbed him. “M-Mikleo? Hey, wake up! Are you okay?”

“I’m…really tired…I don’t think it was a good idea to try using an arte I don’t know how to use…” Mikleo said sleepily. The two of them sat there in silence for a little while until Mikleo remembered that his adventurous partner had skinned his knees. Sorey told him he wasn’t bothered by it; he was more concerned for him and wanted him to rest. Mikleo protested, using what little energy he had left to wash the dust from the wounds. They didn’t have anything to patch him up then Sorey offered his blanket.

“I think Gramps will understand if we told him when we get out,” he said. They pulled hard on the blanket with all the strength they had to no avail. “Okay, well, I think it’ll be fine! Do you feel any better?”

“Yeah, but I’m really hungry…”

“We should try to get back to the entrance. I don’t want you to die in here.”

“I’m not going to! And we still have to find the treasure!”

Mikleo forced himself up, wobbling in place from the dizziness brought on by the artes before peering through the crawlspace. He saw a couple legs blocking the way, but it wasn’t hard to at least scare them so they could escape. They may have been hellions, but even hellions are still primarily animals. He looked at the Celestial Record where he read that they could scare bug and plant hellions with fire. Sorey drained the last drops of oil from the lantern and doused the sticks they had found earlier while Mikleo wet the other ends with his water. With the help of the book, they then looked for rusty-brown flint and lustrous pyrite. When they had the necessary rocks, Sorey struck the flint against the pyrite and Mikleo followed his directions. The few sparks they managed to get fell onto the oil-soaked ends of the sticks and they had the versatile weapon—fire. The only problem was that this fire wasn’t enough to _kill_ the spider hellions, but it sufficed since they knew they couldn’t fight them off.

“I’ll go out first,” Sorey volunteered.

“Sorey, you’ll get hurt!” Mikleo whined.

“I’ll be careful.”

So Sorey crawled out first, poking his torch out to push the hellions away from the crawlspace in order for Mikleo to come out. They took the initiative to run farther down the hall back to the room they were in previous; the good thing about ruins was that they looped around. Unfortunately all the running tore at the fresh scabs forming over Sorey’s knees, beads of blood swelling out. He ignored the stinging for fear that Mikleo would stop to take care of him, but it did slow him down enough for the spider hellion at the front to lunge at him.

Sorey let out a yell. Mikleo whipped his head, peering over his shoulder as the mob overtook the lower half of his body. He ran right back to the horde, flailing his torch so that the spiders were temporarily blinded. A few of them got burned, and as if they operated as an amoebic blob, the horde skittered back into the darkness.

“Sorey! Sorey, wake up!” he begged as he shook his friend. He wasn’t waking up, and there on his hand were two fang marks. “Oh no, one bit him! Think, Mikleo, think!” He quickly draped the satchel around him then wrapped Sorey in the blanket so that one tail was exposed to use for dragging. “The Celestial Record had instructions to make an antidote…I think a panacea bottle? I don’t have any bottles though…”

After Mikleo reached the room with the pool of water, he got to work tending to Sorey. Another book about survival in the wilderness talked about sucking poison out of a fresh wound. It grossed him out because he never realized that sucking poison out meant sucking blood out, but he steeled himself for Sorey’s sake. Sorey was prone to getting hurt, so Mikleo made a vow with himself that he would make sure he was safe from harm. And part of this vow was influenced by Gramps telling him to look out for him. Regardless, it was a facet of his personality to be his “mother hen” as the other seraphim liked to put it.

Once he was sure that he had gotten the poison out—and his indicator of this being how distressed Sorey’s face appeared—he held the flint and herbs in his hands. He found a larger flat stone to grind up the herbs, just like he had read in the survival book. He carefully carried water to soak the ground herbs to make an edible paste. Proud of his hard work, he scooped a little bit on his finger.

“Okay, Sorey, I tried to make medicine, and I know you don’t like medicine, but you have to take it,” Mikleo whispered. He held his finger in front of the sick brunet. He figured that the aromatic scent of the herbs would wake him, but alas…it didn’t. He squeezed his cheeks together until his fingers could pry open his jaw and wiped the paste onto the middle of his tongue. “Hopefully this works.”

And it did but not in the way he was expecting. Sorey rolled out of the swaddled blanket after the paste had dissolved in his mouth and immediately tried to spit out the remainder of it. Being only five years old, Mikleo took great offense to the reaction.

“That was so nasty!” Sorey coughed. “Mikleo, why would you put that in my mouth?!”

“You should be happy that I made medicine! And I’m sure it doesn’t taste _that_ bad!” Then Mikleo tried a taste of the paste. He placed his hand over his mouth to prevent himself from vomiting. “Well…it’s medicine! It’s not supposed to taste good! Do you feel better?”

“Yeah…somehow.”

Mikleo watched him. Tears slowly came to his eyes until he couldn’t hold back anymore. He tackled Sorey, crying into his stomach and going on and on about how he was scared that Sorey was going to die. Sorey patted his head and pinched his cheeks to make him happy.

“There’s no way I’m going to die! I’ll die after we find that treasure!” Sorey smiled. “And besides, as long as you’re with me, I can’t die!”

Mikleo wiped his eyes with his oversized sleeves. His countenance was a determined one. “You’re right, because I’m going to protect you as your loyal water seraph!” He went in for another hug that turned into a tickle fight. As they settled down to eat another snack, Sorey admired Mikleo. It had only been a couple hours, but the water seraph was becoming braver. He’d definitely have to bring him to more ruins in the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've ever eaten Vicks vapor cream, then you can guess what Mikleo's medicine tasted like.


	3. Zenrus the Great Protector

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look on what's going on outside the ruins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a separate side-quest or an ETC skit where Mikleo spills the beans on how Sorey went through a phase of toddler affection where he just kissed and hugged everyone he saw including Mikleo and, damn, does the game make them so cute! Also the glabella is the region of your face where your brow ridge tapers into the bridge of your nose.

After the elder seraphim finished combing the woods containing the Mabinogio Ruins, they came to a consensus that they had to assume the worst, or rather there was no more denying it. Gramps had come to terms that they would have to set foot into the cesspool of malevolence still hoping that at the very least they were near the entrance sleeping or something that did not require them to be conscious and running about. He pulled on his golden ornamented pipe to reduce his anxiety, but the thought of some hellion eating them persisted even as the wisps of smoke danced through the air. Lawrence and Natalie regrouped while the other seraphim tried to calm him.

“I’ve never seen Zenrus get so flustered,” Natalie whispered.

“I guess having a pair of kids makes you more nervous,” Lawrence whispered back.

“True.”

Suddenly Elysia’s chief reached a decision. He stomped away from the wooded area over to the edge of the land that was within the domain. A few concerned voices sounded from behind him until he raised his hand. He remained quiet, his typically cheerful eyes stern and thorough. The other seraphim followed his example. The hellion that had penetrated the domain was there hiding in the shadows just waiting to strike when they least expected it. It made more sense to go ahead and eradicate the enemy and ensure that it was safe than to bring the boys out into more danger.

There was a rustle in the grass. Two adjacent spots were flattened out. The hellion—whatever it was—was standing right there. Gramps could hear its heavy breathing, the guttural growl that rumbled from its throat. It was one of those types of hellions that could vanish in thin air and sneak up behind you, but it was also a wolf-type hellion. It was a strange combination that was entirely possible yet extremely rare, and a hellion like this looked like it ate small children as an appetizer. Gramps raised his pipe into the air as a swirl of clouds took shape above the area. To a normal human, it would have looked like a tornado was forming. Strands of lightning zoomed through them, forming a confluence of energy as it got nearer and nearer to the center. When enough heat and energy had been collected, Gramps swiped his pipe down, commanding a thick, fearsome lightning bolt unto the hellion.

The hellion staggered only for a second as it dropped its guard to reveal itself. Pure malevolence poured from its body, its blackish-red mane undulating within it. It was about twice the size of the tallest seraphim with its upper limbs being disgustingly muscular.

“For a normal hellion, this one is incredibly huge!” someone fearfully said.

“That’s because it’s not a normal one. Someone with a huge burden must have succumbed to their despair pretty recently,” Natalie replied. There was no way of knowing, but getting to Elysia from anywhere on the human world took a couple of days, and hellions were much faster than humans and seraphim alike.

“Normal or not, it’s not welcome in our peaceful village!” Lawrence snarled.

“On my command, everyone focus your attacks!” Gramps ordered. He gave the signal and artes of all elements were launched at the hellion, but to their dismay, most of the attacks down-right bounced off the aura it emitted. “This one…it’s incredibly powerful…!”

“Everyone keep your distance! We don’t know what it’s got in store for us!” Natalie warned. She sent missiles of water and ice to knock it back yet the monster just ate them like they were fine desserts being served on a silver flying saucer. Gramps told his comrades to stop attacking blindly. There had to be a way to catch it off its guard, and when its defenses were down, he would fire another lightning bolt.

The attack was required to be intricately coordinated. Mason and Lawrence fired two large fireballs at the hellion not to damage it but to blind it so Natalie and Kyme could use that window of vulnerability to stun the hellion with torrents from below. The earth seraphim disrupted the ground underneath it when it regained its bearings while the wind seraphs lifted it into the air, where Natalie and Kyme again doused it in water. They let the hellion fall hard to the ground, and Gramps unleashed his lightning bolt again. The shock was magnified, and the hellion was only barely alive. Gramps and his people didn’t have the power to purify hellions, so it pained them to have to kill it without understanding what had driven this being to animosity at some earlier point in time. Gramps called down another bolt of lightning, and the monster’s body scattered into flecks of stray malevolence that burned up in the holy domain.

“Good work, everyone!” Natalie congratulated. The seraphim cheered, yet Gramps had no time to celebrate. He was content that they got rid of the first threat, but the fact his boys were missing still remained unchanged. “Zenrus,” the water seraph uttered to him. “Please, let us be on our way to the ruins and save your boys.”

Gramps nodded, and Lawrence came around to put his arm around his shoulder—that is, after he knelt down to his level first. He knew that he was even more worried having just fought off a hellion that could have easily overpowered anyone if they were alone, but he also knew that he was ready to bludgeon the little adventurers with harsh criticisms of their behavior and reprimands for disobeying him.

“I may not know much about human kids or kids in general, but I get the feeling that yelling at them will only make them fear you. From what we’ve read about humans, doing that will make them disobey more or avoid you completely,” the   
fire seraph calmly said.

“Let’s not forget that all kids aren’t like that, shall we?” Natalie added. “Regular human kids are vicious little things when they feel attacked. Have you seen the ones in Ladylake? I sure hope Sorey never becomes like that.”

“That boy has been living with us since he was born. Zenrus even purified him before he could turn into a hellion back then. He’ll be fine.”

“And besides, he’s got Mikleo!” Mason chimed in. “ _That_ child always looks out for him!”

“He’s going to have his hands full with him…” Natalie sighed.

Everyone fell silent for only a moment until Gramps squeezed the glabella in an effort to calm down. He knew who was mostly at fault now; he knew Sorey was most interested in the Mabinogio Ruins, and he realized that there would be one day that the boys together would use their cunning to sneak into them. Then again, Mikleo’s attitude was synergistic if not more influential in running amok to find every nook and cranny they could get into. Yes, Sorey was in charge of points of interest while Mikleo served as the treasure radar. Gramps remembered that all of this was because he decided to teach them to pay attention to unique things in life and to focus on rare items. But who would have thought that they would develop such a keen eye and sense for these things?

Gramps let go of his face with a sigh of defeat. “I guess I can’t be that mad with them. I gave them the tools to explore; it’s only natural that they would use their wit and use them,” he admitted with a tired smile.

Natalie, Kyme, Lawrence, and Mason were flabbergasted at the sudden change of heart. Their leader owned up to a (not) terrible mistake! Of all the antics they had done when they first arrived into the world as seraphim, would he be willing to overlook them now? Of course, they were adults and were expected to be mature about things, but they did pull their share of pranks in olden days. It was thereby a moot point.

The entirety of the village—minus two curious kittens—gathered at the entrance of the ruins. The door was open just over enough to let in two approximately two-and-a-half –feet tall boys. One of the seraphim of the village touched a smooth stone on the side of the ruins, opening the door enough for everyone to go through.

“Alright, remember everyone. These ruins lie outside of the stricter part of the domain. We are walking into a hellion breeding ground. They may be weak, but there is power in numbers!” Kyme reminded him on behalf of Gramps.  
They stepped down the same mossy stairs that Sorey and Mikleo had to. Gramps could almost see their beaming faces as they discovered that underneath their feet was a trove of knowledge.

A few of the seraphim complained about the darkness and the grime that had built up in the ruins. Someone even suggested that they should all work together to do some sprucing up, but that person was quickly put down for even thinking that cleaning up an entire ruin site was possible. Another seraph reminded everyone that cleaning would be difficult given that certain places were sealed away.

“So what’s wrong with just avoiding those areas?”

“Either you clean it all or none at all. And besides, who even likes cleaning?” Mason pouted.

“I happen to have a knack for it,” Natalie murmured.

Cleaning houses and making homes was outside of what seraphim actually did, but because Sorey was human and it wouldn’t have worked to raise him like a seraph—outside with no food or shelter or sleep or a decent education about human etiquette—the seraphim made homes out of boulders that were painstakingly hollowed out using powerful seraphic artes. Since then, the seraphim had gotten accustomed to such a way of living and were happy to have such simplistic desires and goals like pruning bonsai trees and cleaning.

The walk down the stairs in to the ruins turned into reminiscing about the years as they grew up to where they were now. The female seraphim cooed when they brought up Sorey and Mikleo’s eyes that were almost too big for their tiny skulls and how they hugged each other so much as babies. It was only two years ago that Sorey had gotten into the habit of hugging and kissing every being he saw, and considering he was with Mikleo all the time, the tiny water seraph was subjected to copious amounts of toddler affection. They even had to make a rule for Sorey that the hugs and kisses were to be limited to one of each per person per day. Sorey almost cried when he wasn’t allowed to show his love for them to the extent he wanted to, and Gramps made an exception that he could hug and kiss him and Mikleo three times a day—one in the morning, one during the afternoon, and one right before going to bed. Oh, how Gramps missed the days that they refused to leave his side…but they had to grow up sooner or later, and wishing them to stay small forever was probably detrimental to their psychological development.

“It’s so sad that they can’t stay young forever,” another seraph cried. “Well, Mikleo most likely will, but Sorey!”

“Relax, when he’s old and decrepit, we’ll have to take care of him again!” Mason happily said.

“Don’t make it sound like it’s easy! The one thing harder then taking care of little humans is taking care of big humans!” someone else snapped.

“But even when Sorey’s old and can’t do things for himself, Zenrus and all of us will be there to help him…heck, he might even need help _before_ he’s old. That kid gets into so much trouble…” Natalie sighed.

Gramps continued to lead the group with a proud smile on his lips. He liked the sound of it. Zenrus the Great Protector of Children. It was an idea for a bedtime story if they ever needed one.


	4. Treasure Hunting Duo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikleo is as adamant as ever to find some treasure!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to find a balance between their knowing and not knowing of the world. Like booby traps. It's hard when you can't remember your own mannerisms as a five-year-old aside from being a pain in the butt. A bit of a rough patch on this chapter, though. Sorry about that.

Sorey and Mikleo came to a room that seemed to be empty with the exception of spider webs in the corners. A few roots from the trees above had breached the ceiling and curved back into the rock, which had caused pieces of rubble to fall some decades ago. Other than that, there wasn’t really anything worth noting.

“It’s another dead-end…” Mikleo disappointedly said. “I want treasure.”

“If we keep looking, we’ll find it; trust me!” Sorey happily responded. He took a step further into the room while Mikleo went to a corner near the entrance to investigate anything that was out of the ordinary. “Ooh, what if there are doody traps?”

“Booby traps?”

“Why are they called booby traps?”

“We should ask Gramps when we get the treasure!”

Mikleo giggled as Sorey grinned while walking back towards him. The stone panel sunk under his foot, activating one of the traps. Stone blocks began to fall above them, and the two of them ran in circles dodging them. They may have been young, but they knew that if even the corner of one of the blocks hit them, they would be in severe pain. Mikleo stepped on another stone trigger, and more blocks fell over Sorey, this time it was one after another in the same spot. Sorey took a step back onto a third trigger, forcing him to jump out of the way onto his best friend, whom fell back onto the fourth trigger.

“How many buttons are there?!” Sorey questioned with frustration.

“How many blocks are there?!” Mikleo almost cried.

They dragged each other to the entrance, stepping on each and every trigger in the process. Dust started to kick up in the little room, and the little water seraph took it upon himself to shield his best friend’s eyes. He clumsily hugged Sorey’s head until the dust dispersed behind him, and when he turned around to let Sorey see what became of the room, a wave of dread washed over them. The room was completely filled with the blocks. If there was even a hidden clue to the treasure in there, then it was impossible to get.

“Sorey…do you think we can move all these blocks?” Mikleo asked.

“Feeling like an adventurerer now?” Sorey excitedly asked.

“I just want treasure!”

Sorey and Mikleo approached one of the blocks and used all their strength to pull it, but it wouldn’t budge. Little five-year-old biceps and triceps were not enough to move a 20-pound block, much less a 200-pound one. They had no choice but to move on to another room. And another room, and another, and another, and another until they realized that they were walking in circles again.

“This would be easier if we had a map,” Sorey sighed.

Inspired by this comment, Mikleo sat down with the Celestial Record and leafed through it until he came to the section about the Mabinogio Ruins. He ignored all of the information on the hellions and exterior architecture so as to quickly find out if there was a map on them. There was one, thankfully, but it looked either incomplete or simplified. Sorey curled up next to him to listen to him as he read:

“‘The Ma-bi-no-gi-o Ruins are s-similar to other ruins because of the windy—winding halls. Re-gret-tably, my full dis—disclo—…’ Sorey, what’s this word?”

“Try saying it,” Sorey replied. It was a habit that they shared thanks to Gramps’s way of teaching. If they reached a word they didn’t know or couldn’t remember, they would ask Gramps to say it for them. He would instead show them the word and point at each syllable, correcting them as needed. With so many books at their disposal, it happened so often that even eventually they taught each other how to say words and then asked Gramps if they were right whenever he wasn’t busy tending to the village’s needs. “You can do it.”

Mikleo let out a sigh. He liked learning, but learning while running on fumes was a lot more difficult. “Dis-clo-sure. Disclosure. ‘Regrettably, my full disclosure remains in-com-plete due to the great dif-fi-cul-ties in locating the Seraphic Village Elysia. The evidence in this record has been com-piled from other researcher notes’. Even the person who wrote the book doesn’t have the full map…”

Sorey took the book, scanning it with his eyes over and over again until it was memorized. He looked at his best friend, taking his hands with excitement and fervor and telling him, “We’re going to finish this map ourselves!”

“But how? We don’t have a pencil!” Mikleo whined.

“We can remember it! If we work together, I know we can do it!”

The snow-white-haired seraph perked up. Sorey was absolutely right! They went in the same circle they had been going in, staring long and hard to take in every detail of the ruins. Exactly where the moss had gross, where drips of water came, where roots peeked through the stone—everything was memorized between the two of them as best as they could. Sorey found a few rocks and put them at where their route had started. If they passed by the rocks, they decided that they would retrace their steps to solidify what they saw in their memories. Mikleo did the same next to anything they found interesting that wasn’t in the book. A lizard colored like a rainbow, for instance. Naturally, everything to the five-year-olds was to an extent interesting, and they knew that they would have to sift through everything to find the most important details. And since they knew how to get in, who was going to stop them from revisiting?

“If Gramps finds us, he’ll make sure we don’t leave his house for a week,” both of them realized aloud at one of their markers.

After crisscrossing the paths they had taken so far too many times to count, they came to a dead-end that opened to the outside. Sorey went right to the edge of it, looking down at the clouds below. Him being so small, it was unnerving to find that they were so high that they couldn’t see the ground. He backed up slowly into Mikleo.

“Haha, well, this way is bad…” he nervously laughed, his knees wobbling beneath him. Mikleo lightly tapped him on his head for being silly, and then he saw it for himself and almost cried. Sorey took his hand, leading him back to the safety that was deeper into the ruins. He hugged him and kissed his cheek to make him feel better. “It’s okay. We’re not going to go anywhere near there.”

Another few minutes of wandering around brought them to a room where there was, by the grace of Lady Luck, was a treasure chest. It was small and wooden, and whoever had left it put it on a pedestal that screamed for it to be opened. Mikleo sprinted up to it, his amethyst eyes sparkling as he gazed at the quaint box. Sorey checked for traps, and the two of them lifted the cover together. Inside was a single bone.

“Just a bone?” Sorey mumbled. “That’s kind of cool.”

Mikleo, frightened by their discovery, latched onto Sorey. Why would a bone be in a treasure chest? Who would have died in the ruins, and who would be there to make it a valuable find? Something in their gut told them that the treasure was the trap.

They backed away slowly from the treasure chest. They turned to the entrance of the room, but what they saw wasn’t an escape. Covering the entrance and the bit of the external hall that it led to were black spider webs. While they didn’t hear anything that suggested something had crept in with them, there was an eerie presence in the room. The presence was worse than that of the horde of spider hellions; it was so much stronger that Mikleo clung to Sorey to support his body. Sorey wrapped his arms around him thinking that they would be enough to shield him from any monsters that had come to drag them away and eat them.

There was clunking sound, like wooden blocks falling on each other. Hollow but loud. The room seemed darker than it previously was. The boys fell to the ground in fear. There was a high-pitched giggling, like a woman was watching them squirm uncomfortably in their spot. Mikleo’s vision adjusted to the darkening room, and whatever had made that hollow sound was now clear. It was a pile of more bones.

“S-S-Sorey…” he squeaked. “T-T-They’re…Those things…”

A large hellion dropped from the ceiling in front of them, crushing the bones into dust. Sorey felt his heart stop as a pair of clawed hands reached for him and Mikleo. The creature’s sharp nails punctured their clothes and had gone through just enough to lightly poke their skin like thick syringes. The hands were supple and feminine, but to whatever it was they belonged had the capacity to use even just a fraction of its strength to push them together to hold them, and as if that wasn’t the worst part, the creature pulled them closer and lifted itself back to the ceiling. Sorey and Mikleo were far too scared to scream, their voices trapped deep in their throats. They frantically looked around as their captor wrapped them up in webbing to find that more shadowy figures had congregated, all of them giggling and slurping their lips. While they were whisked away to some other part of the ruins, Sorey and Mikleo cowered together in their cocoon of silk. They could no longer see outside, and they were probably better off not doing so.


	5. The Lair of the Spider Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorey and Mikleo look like delicious entrees for the spider hellions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm late in posting a new chapter. I was moving into my new apartment and was too tired to write the chapter last night. Hopefully you all like it as we near the climax of our young heroes' first journey into the ruins!

“Zenrus, I found something!” Mason alerted. He signaled the search team over to the opened treasure chest where a bone lay. He gingerly picked it up turning over and over in his hands so his fellow seraphim could analyze it. While he wasn’t as well-versed in anatomy like others, he could tell it was an adult femur. Learning this, Gramps wasn’t too anxious, but finding a bone in ruins was never a good sign. There were also broken bones and fragments in the area along with strands of glittering web. Gramps’s crew had encountered some of the spider hellions, so it wasn’t surprising to see the latter evidence.

Gramps focused on the strands, and he noted that the malevolence coming off them were much stronger than the spiders they had killed earlier. It wasn’t a really a stretch to figure that, just like the wolf-type hellion they exterminated, there were extremely strong hellions in there, too. Focusing even harder, there was a telling trail braided through the halls that would hopefully lead them to where they needed to be.

“We’re not too far off now,” Gramps mumbled. “We’ll kill the hellions before we find Mikleo and Sorey so that they won’t have to worry about the danger.”

As they continued their search in one part of the ruins, Sorey and Mikleo were being carried off to another part on the backs of whatever hellion had captured them. It was completely dark in the cocoon made of web, and they huddled close together for comfort, for they were so terrified of what crawled beneath them that they feared the worst was going to happen.

“Sorey…do you think we’ll be eaten?” Mikleo sniffled.

Sorey hugged him tightly. “If they try to eat us, I’m going to try and scare them away like how we did with the other hellions. Don’t worry, okay, Mikleo?” he calmly whispered to him.

“Okay…” Mikleo mumbled; his timid word muffled into Sorey’s tiny chest.

They felt themselves moving for a long time, and as hard as they tried to fight it, they couldn’t help but succumb to the drowsiness brought on by the ride. Mikleo fell asleep first since he had exhausted himself by using his artes. He hadn’t gotten a proper nap, and Sorey felt some guilt about it because he kept pushing him forward. The tiny brunet forced his eyes to stay open so he could watch the water seraph and protect him. Within a few minutes of the latter falling asleep, though, he couldn’t even rationalize staying awake. Occasionally there was a bump that stirred him, and it helped him stay awake for a little while. Soon enough, the ride felt like a never-ending loop of the same soothing bobbing and jerking bumps.

Mikleo was the first to wake up when they noticed that the moving had stopped. There was excited chattering and slurping echoing in whatever chamber they had come to. He found that they were still wrapped in the cocoon, but he also felt like they were suspended in the air. Any small but sudden movement could cause them to fall. He shook Sorey’s arm.

“Sorey, wake up,” he urgently whispered. “I think we stopped.”

Sorey’s eyes fluttered open, his left side completely numbed from holding Mikleo and sleeping for what seemed like weeks. He slowly turned his head, half-expecting that they would have been freed either by Gramps or by whatever had trapped them. When he realized that they were still in the web cocoon, he hugged Mikleo tighter than he already was hugging him. He knew they were in great danger. It was something worse than the horde of hellions, worse than any hellion they had encountered while playing near Elysia’s entrance. Gramps wasn’t there to save them, and they didn’t have any weapons or artes to protect themselves.

“Ladies, we have finally caught ourselves a dinner fit for even the strongest of hellions!” a woman’s voice cackled like a witch, and a roar of cheers sounded after her. “Today’s catch consists of two children from that rotten seraphic village—one seraph and one human!” There was another chorus of cheers louder than the previous one. “Now, who shall we eat first: the human child or the seraphic child?”

Mikleo and Sorey’s blood ran cold as they listened to one section of the crowd of hellions demand they eat the little water seraph first while another section wished for the little human. They knew that hellions were violent creatures, but they never expected them to require a source of nutrition; they thought that they ate for sport. Hellion data wasn’t written into the Celestial Record, so naturally, they weren’t prepared to think about any of this.

In a panic, the two boys tried to break free of the cocoon, kicking it and punching it until their limbs were heavy from pain and fatigue. Sorey patted all around him for the sticks they had used as torches, but they were gone. In fact, all of their equipment was gone! Mikleo tried to use an ice seraphic arte but decided against it since Sorey was so close to him; he had shot an icicle, there was a high chance that he would hit his best friend. Then a sharp, knife-like leg poked through the cocoon, its tip only centimeters away from Sorey’s face. It cut through the strands of web like a knife through packaging tape, eliciting a pleasurable squeal from the one who had caught them. They heard her smacking her lips, and when she broke open the cocoon like how a medical examiner would break open a deceased person’s rib cage, they finally put a face to the voice.

The hellion had black hair cut to a bob, all eight of her purple eyes peering through the fringe to gaze upon the delicious morsels in her web. Her slender finger curled around the edges of the cocoon’s opening, and her large brown abdomen loomed behind her like an eclipse of the sun. When she grinned, her fangs overlapped each other.

“My sisters have decided that the first course should be the human,” she giggled. She pulled at Sorey by the back of his neck from the webs, and both children listened to the adhesive substance on them screeched as it peeled off his clothes and skin. “Don’t be shy, child, there’s no need to be afraid. Once you’ve been drained of the first liter of blood, you won’t think much of anything!”

“M-Mikleo!” Sorey cried.

“Sorey!” Mikleo cried as well. He tried to pull himself out the glob of webbing around him before the spider queen left, but it was no use. She held Sorey over the swarm of Arachne hellions like steak over a lion pit. The water seraph managed to get his hand free just as the spider queen released her grip on the human child. “Sorey, no!”

Mikleo’s body began to glow, a growing bubble of water appearing before his outstretched hand. He focus on Sorey so hard that time seemed to slow. Once the bubble had gotten big enough, he pulled back his arm and shot it forward with such a velocity that knocked him some distance out of the way of the horde beneath him. The spider queen turned back to Mikleo, her eyes burning with anger. She roughly picked him up by the front of his neck, and her vice-grip made his struggle for air. While he was resilient for a five-year-old, he wasn’t going to last long, especially if she thought to throw him to her minions.

Sorey got up from where he ended up, searching the upper portion of the ruins for Mikleo. “Don’t worry, I’ll save you!” he yelled out to him when he found him. He looked on the ground for anything he could use to make a weapon. A large heavy branch had fallen with him when Mikleo shot him out the air, and he had enough strength to break a medium-sized rock into sharp pieces. He took the sharpest shard he could find, and using whatever web silk strands was still stuck to him, he tied it to the branch. It was a hefty spear, but it would at least give him some sort of defense.

He held his new weapon like a battering ram, piercing through whatever Arachne hellions were in his way. Some of them tried to swat at him while others tried to grab him by the limbs and poison him. He dodged as best as he could, and he still ended up with a few scratches, but it was nothing compared to what Mikleo was going through as he dangled over the monsters.

The spider queen brought him to eye-level. “I was going to divide you among my girls, but since you’re so _eager_ to be eaten, I’ll have you for myself,” she hissed. She crawled up to a hole in the wall with Mikleo still hanging in her grip.

Sorey watched as she got away, fear sprouting in his heart that his best friend was going to die at such a young age. The other Arachne hellion closed in on him, but seeing how powerless he was to save Mikleo drained him of his strength. One of them grabbed his arm and was prepared to bite him until a sudden bolt of lightning shot forth and killed her. The flash had stunned the other hellions and Sorey, his own heart racing in his chest.

The Arachne hellions redirected their attention to the entrance of that chamber. A group of people emerged from the shadows—Gramps and his followers! He fired another lightning bolt at the hellions while Natalie and Mason used their water and fire powers to mow down a row of them. Other seraphim used their earth powers and wind powers to suspend their movement, making it easier for Gramps to fry them. Kyme sped towards Sorey, whom was about to be stabbed by a desperate monster; grabbed him into his arms, and impaled her with an icicle spear.

“Make sure none of them get away!” Natalie ordered.

The Arachne hellions, by this point, were floundering about trying to get to safety. Earth seraphim barred their escape routes, and water seraphim pinned them to the stone slabs that had risen out of the ground. As each hellion died, their bodies dissipated into black flames that released the malevolence inside of them. Gramps purified the flecks, making sure that Sorey especially was not affect by it.

“G-Gramps!” Sorey sobbed. He buried his face in his robes with the tears forming massive stains. “We’re sorry! We just wanted to explore, and Mikleo got caught by the spider queen hellion and I couldn’t save him but he saved me and I’m scared he’s going to die!”

“Whoa, easy there, champ,” Mason softly said.

“It’s alright, Sorey,” Gramps told him. “I know you were curious, and while I am upset, we need to go help Mikleo. But from now on, you should listen to me about going off into the ruins alone.”

“We were playing and then…” Sorey sniffled. “Oh, no! My Celestial Record! I lost it!”

Lawrence walked up to him and handed him the ancient book. They had found it in one of the halls along with their lantern and other provisions. It seemed that the hellions had tossed them after deciding just what they were going to do with the children.

Gramps held Sorey’s hand, commanding that they locate where the spider queen hellion had gone. “When we find her, we’ll have found Mikleo,” he said indignantly. Sorey took this as a plan of action, dried his tears, and began to drag the spear he made. The seraphim were amazed that he had built such a thing to save Mikleo, and while it wouldn’t be very effective in fighting due to its size and weight, they decided that they would keep it in mind in case they found a blind spot in the hellion’s defenses.


	6. Honing One's Skills for the Sake of Another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikleo has to find a way out of his predicament before it's too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting a little, itty-bitty innocent five-year-old SorMik in this chapter. Trying to write while both sleepy and hungry makes for a GREAT chapter right? Haha...ha...

Mikleo continued to struggle against the spider queen. She had taken him to a secret room where she had brought all of her victims. Some glowing crystal ore pieces had been growing in the room, which offered some light that was almost hypnotizing. As the hellion angrily held him down and wrap him up to his neck in webbing, he glanced around the room. There were all types of dead animal bodies in different stages of decomposition. There were even bones sucked clean of all meat lying on the ground underneath him.

“I’ll teach you to interrupt my dinner!” she screeched. She went away to neaten up the ground and sharpen her fangs on a stone. She was planning on pinning him down flat before feasting on his blood; that much was evident to Mikleo.

The water seraph sat in his wrapping helplessly. He wanted to save Sorey, and he did, but now that he was caught, he was afraid that Sorey would come after him. It was his (self-appointed) job to protect him, and now he was going to lure him to his death. _I have to do something! If Sorey comes here, she’ll eat him for sure!_

The spider queen was still tending to herself, so Mikleo began thinking of a way to get out of his predicament. He wiggled around, trying to pull his arms from the webbing and kicking his feet as much as possible to loosen them around his ankles. If he could just do that, then he could hopefully tear the rest of the cocoon. At the same time, he tried to focus long and hard on his artes. If he could harden his water into ice, he’d have some sort of defense until he was able to find an escape route.

“All done,” the spider queen giggled. She jumped up to where Mikleo was stuck to the wall with the web. He began to panic, which tickled her fancy. “I love it when my dinner can feel death encroaching upon them,” she hummed proudly.

The spider queen neared his neck with her newly sharpened fangs ready to suck out every drop of blood flowing through his body. A five-year-old wasn’t as enticing as an adult, but he’d have to do until she had the forces to capture an adult seraph. She loosened some of the strands around his shoulders so that she could get a better angle…and this was her biggest mistake. Mikleo pulled his arm out and formed a bubble of water, morphing it into something like a gelatinous spike ball before willing his water to freeze. He plunged the ball into the spider queen’s stomach as hard as he could. The result was the spider queen falling back to the ground holding her fresh malevolence-bleeding wound. Mikleo cut through the rest of the web with his new weapon, but he was still stuck to the inside of it. If he tried to yank himself from the wall, he would either plummet to his death or land on a corpse right in front of the spider queen. But there was the chance of landing _on_ her and bouncing off to safety. It was a stretch, but he did manage to harm her so she wouldn’t move.

Mikleo pushed himself off the wall repeatedly until he peeled off the inside of the cocoon. He began to fall towards the ground, but with his free hand, he pushed off the wall with his water. He fell onto the spider queen’s abdomen, successfully bouncing onto her but falling on his tailbone when he hit the ground. The pain of crunching it paralyzed his legs for just a moment. He got up, hunchbacked and numb, and then stiffly moved in search of an exit in the secret room. But that was it. A secret room didn’t have an obvious exit, and the hole that he had come from was way too high to climb to. The spider queen’s pain subsided for now; she began to give chase to him around the room. Mikleo was forced to find a way out while dodging the piles of bones and rotting corpses around him and hiding from his assailant.

“W-Where’s the door?” he asked after a few minutes of running away from the hellion. He was still hurting from his fall, and his pursuer was gaining on him as he slowed down. When the spider queen was right on him, he feared the worst. No matter what he would try, he was going to be eaten. He was about to look back over his shoulder to gauge her distance—which wasn’t a lot—when he stepped on a rock. The rock had twisted his ankle, and he tumbled to a collection of boulders near a wall. His ankle was bruised, turning darker and darker as he tried to wedge himself between the boulders and the wall, but the spider queen grabbed him up by the leg. “D-Don’t try to eat me, you nasty lady! G-Gramps is gonna get you!”

“Is that so, boy? Your little grandpa is going to kill me? Ah-ha-ha! That’s so funny because I don’t recall every hearing about anyone find this room and living! You’re as good as dead, my dear child!” she cackled.

Mikleo trembled in her hands as she aimed two of her pointy legs at the level of his neck. He pulled his head back like a turtle in an attempt to protect his neck. He thought hard on what to do. The ice was still on his hand, and it would be difficult to attack her again with the same move. On top of that, he was running low again on energy from using the artes; he had managed to fight back but at the expense of being left vulnerable afterwards. Nonetheless, he launched another small water ball at her face, but she didn’t flinch or bat any one of her eyes. She growled at him as she flipped him around so that she could bite his neck instead of stab it. Of course being splashed by a five year old child would simply anger her. Mikleo curled as much as he could in her grip.

“S-Sorey…I’m sorry!” he whimpered. “I can’t fight her…”

Then he remembered something that Gramps had told him.

“Mikleo, you may be too young to understand now, but you are in charge of making sure Sorey never gets hurt. You are going to protect him with your strength and your love. You are a special seraph because you two have been bonded at birth. In the times that you feel helpless, remember my words…” Gramps had said.

“No matter what, Sorey needs me!” Mikleo suddenly said, forcing the spider queen to stop her advances to his neck. The ice on his hand shattered with the rising power of another bigger, faster-spinning ball of water. When it had reached the size of his head, he threw it into her face. Then he threw another one. He kept throwing them until her eyes burned from the coldness, and she dropped him. Mikleo hobbled to another group of boulders that he could use as a shield for any webs or rocks. “I can’t die because I have to protect Sorey because I love him and he’s my best friend!”

He stretched out his arms, his fingers splayed apart as he tightly shut his eyes and focused. His balls of water separated into smaller ones that thinned out into needles. They hardened into icicles, floating in front of him like little darts. If he could just paralyze her, he could concentrate on escaping the room. Piercing the joints in her legs like an entomologist would prohibit any more advances until the ice either broke or melted. But releasing a flurry of them at her would reduce her ability to dodge and hit the marks. Following this plan, Mikleo bought himself a few minutes as the spider queen bellowed in pain.

The little water seraph went to work. He scrutinized the walls as best as he could, shifting corpses and skeletons around as needed to find any clue of how to get out of the room. He poked his tiny fingers into crevices to feel the flow of air or looked on the ground for panels and triggers like one of the previous rooms had. He glanced back at the spider queen, and found that she was carefully but surely extracting the ice needles from her body. He pressured himself to think deeper into the puzzle that was the room. There had to be something that opened a door! The spider queen had removed the needles from her arms and was now working on her legs.

“Please, you’ve got to open somehow!” he begged. He placed his hand on a brick on the wall under where he had been stuck to the web. The brick glowed faintly with certain spots that were touched by the water on his palm glowing brighter. Noticing this, he wet the brick with his arte then watched as the brick gleamed so brightly that he had to shield his violet eyes. The light spread throughout the surrounding bricks until a large portion of the wall became illuminated. Mikleo placed his hand on it, and the bricks liquefied into water that rained down on the ground and pooled near the spider queen’s legs. She was now free save for the needles in her stomach. He had no time to waste.

Mikleo ran out of the room and down the hall as fast as he could with his injured ankle until he found a branching pathway that he could use for cover. From here, he fired more balls of water until he tired himself out to the point of almost passing out. His vision blurred and dimmed. His breathing was labored. He held his head. All of these sudden changes in him were all red flags that he was going to, once again, be wrapped up in the web. He worried that he would be carted back to the secret room without the energy he had had to escape.

“I have to find Sorey,” he murmured to himself. He fell to his knees after taking only a few steps. Immobile on the ground, he looked at the entrance of that hall where the spider queen’s silhouette appeared and swelled as she drew closer to him. Mikleo forced himself to roll over. His vision began to tunnel. “Don’t come any closer…” he struggled to even enunciate.

“I’ll do as I please, prey,” the spider queen triumphantly told him.

Mikleo fired a pathetically small water ball at her that simply splashed her stomach which only served to whet her appetite. It was over; he was going to be eaten this time. No amount of running would save him now. He had resigned himself to die, accepting that it was his foolishness that got him in trouble. No one was going to save him, but at least Sorey was far away from her. That is, until he heard his name coming from further down the hall.

“Mikleo! _Mikleo!_ " Sorey’s boisterous voice came. Mikleo lazily leaned his head back to find that Sorey was riding on Mason’s back like a jouster, his spear—held up in the back by Lawrence—at his side and prepared to puncture the spider queen’s balloon-looking abdomen. “I’m coming for you, Mikleo! We still have to find out treasure!”

“You are _not_ finding any treasure!” Natalie scolded from behind.

When Mason had reached Mikleo, he leaned forward so that Sorey could crawl up further up his back with the barbaric spear; Lawrence pushed it forward with an amount of strength that was almost overkill. The spider queen screeched as a lightning bolt came from behind Lawrence and Natalie. The spider queen was—figuratively and literally—on her last two legs. Mason set Sorey down, who pulled up Mikleo and held him up by the hip. The water seraph, after receiving a reassuring nod from his best friend, gathered the very last bit of his strength in his hand. He froze the water ball into an ice spear, and like Sorey, he thrust it into her. Natalie quickly came up behind them and shielded their eyes from the resulting gruesome sight before the hellion burst into black flames that turned light blue with Gramps’s power of purification.

“That was so cool, Mikleo! You can use your artes now!” Sorey yipped. He bounced in place while holding onto his shoulders. “Teach me how to do it! I wanna throw ice, too!”

“Okay, I’ll teach you…” Mikleo smiled before he collapsed into Natalie’s arms. She informed Gramps, whom was walking through his people to gather his boys, that Mikleo had a fever. “Sorey…”

“It seems like he had been trying to use his artes despite not knowing how to properly channel his power,” Natalie told the village chief.

Sorey began to panic as Mikleo slept, but Mason calmed him by telling him that they both needed to rest. The tiny brunet held onto his water seraph’s robe, refusing to let go until he was sure that Mikleo was alright. If it were only one child, Gramps would have carried him with the comforting warmth that family could give, but it was both of them, and he asked Lawrence to carry the both of them.

“I love these boys, but the love they have for each other is far greater,” he sighed, “Which is why it’s imperative that you carry them both together. If you don’t, Sorey will cry until we get back to the village and right now, and I think we’d all like some peace and quiet after this cockamamie search and rescue _and_ destroy mission.”

Natalie and Mason stood off to the side whispering, “I can’t tell if he’s upset that this is all over or if he’s still upset that they ran off to the ruins.”

Lawrence asked Kyme to carry Mikleo after loosening up the folds on his sleeve so Sorey could hold onto it to make him feel better about Mikleo’s incapacitated condition. Gramps subsequently led his people out of the ruins and back to Elysia, finding that the sun was now high above the magnificent cumulus clouds in the sky.


	7. The Concept of Grounding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter.

Mikleo slept for three straight days suffering the fatigue of using artes he still couldn’t control, and Sorey never left his side. He changed the towel on his head and read to him from the Celestial Record. Every page had something that he was profoundly interested in seeing, so he told each item to him even if he couldn’t react to it. Every item met with a scolding from Gramps, who had reminded him that once Mikleo woke up, their punishment for going into the ruins would begin.

“But Gramps! It’s boring staying here!” Sorey whined. “We’ve read every book, and I wanna go see the ruins!”

Gramps casually dragged on his pipe before telling him, “Not until you’re older.”

“Well, I’ll be older tomorrow! Can we go tomorrow?”

“ _Much_ older.”

“Next month?”

“Child, you won’t be going anywhere near those ruins until you’ve learned to live on your own. As your guardian, that won’t be until I die.”

“But Gramps, you’re one of the oldest living seraphim I know.”

“Precisely.”

Sorey eventually stopped his nagging before Mikleo finally came out of his deep sleep around the middle of the third day. He sat up, a positively sleepily confused look on his face. He asked where he was and what happened to the spider queen even though he had helped to fight her. His stomach ached from hunger, and he began to cry, which caused Sorey to cry because he didn’t like it when Mikleo was sad. The same was true for the opposite.

Gramps shuffled along with a plate of roasted prickleboar and apple juice for his boys. Once they had started their onslaught of the food, he sat down in front of them, a gruff countenance and a flaming pipe present there with him. Sorey and Mikleo nervous sucked on the pieces of meat they had in their mouths somewhat scared that the old man was going to yell at them for going off into the ruins and consequently almost getting eaten. His eyes definitely looked stern, and there was definitely a frown on his lips.

“It seems I’ll have to start training early with you two,” he said thoughtfully.

Sorey and Mikleo relaxed, exchanging puzzled glances as they chewed the meat. Wasn’t Gramps super mad at them?

“But that doesn’t mean you can just go to the ruins whenever you please!” he continued. There was the anger they were anticipating! “We spent hours looking for you! I almost had a heart attack when we found a hellion in the domain. What if you two had been eaten? How would I feel? That’s right, sad! Don’t ever leave without so much as my permission ever again!”

Sorey and Mikleo, with the juices of the prickleboar around their mouths, sniffled as moon-sized tears trickled down their faces. Gramps panicked, patting their heads gently and shushing them. Mason was right about children not liking to be yelled at. He kept rubbing their hair until they quieted down before changing his tone to a slightly direr one.

“You two were very strong, though,” he softly told them, the urgency still in his voice. “We shall begin training in a couple of months so that you can protect yourselves against hellions. Mikleo, you will learn your artes with Kyme once you have fully recovered from the exhaustion. Sorey…you will train with Natalie in the ways of the sword.”

Sorey looked uncomfortable. “I wanna learn how to throw water like Mikleo!” he whined. “He’s so cool when he does it!”

“I wanna learn how to fight with a sword! Sorey looks so cool when he does it with sticks!” Mikleo complained.

Gramps covered his face in defeat. These two were hell-bent on doing everything together…but then perhaps they wouldn’t have any qualms about serving their sentence together. It seemed that they had completely forgotten about the fact that they broke the number one rule in going into hellion territory. He was unsure about the way humans raised their young, but he was familiar with the concept of keeping them under strict supervision. He grounded them.

“What does that mean?” the two ragamuffins asked. By now they had finished the prickleboar and were slurping up the sweet golden apple juice that Gramps made himself. “Does that mean we can’t fly? But seraphim and humans already don’t fly.”

The two chatted between themselves trying to understand what it meant to be grounded. They came up with the lack of flying, not using magic carpets, definitely not riding atop dragons. What else was there that could fly?

“Sorey, what if seraphim could grow wings?” Mikleo happily said.

“And if humans could, too, then we could fly together!” Sorey replied.

“Gramps, can we grow wings?” they asked simultaneously.

Gramps tapped them on the head with his fingers. “Boys, you need to start listening to me. When you get grounded, it means that you can’t do certain things for fun. So your punishment is that you cannot go out the village, you can’t go into the ruins, and you can’t practice your artes, martial or seraphic.”

“But we already don’t do those things…” Mikleo mumbled.

“We go out the village to play in the woods,” Sorey corrected.

Gramps sighed. It was going to be difficult instilling in them any type of discipline. He had hoped that by grounding them, they would learn to calm down a little bit. But as luck would have it, he was blessed with two boys that wanted to see the world. Their endless curiosity was only a small curse that would hopefully be controlled in due time.

He looked at Sorey. This child would grow up to be someone who loved everyone and would hold justice in high regard. His heart was pure, his curiosity and love innocent. He turned his gaze onto Mikleo. This child would grow up to be strong and dutiful, bound to Sorey out of the same love. He hoped that they would protect each other, and when the time came, they could depend on each other for support through even the toughest of decisions.

“Gramps?” Sorey said.

“Are you okay?” Mikleo inquired.

Gramps remembered where he was, soon ushering them to the bath since they hadn’t been washed in three days. He gave them some playtime in the wooden tub as he went to fetch clean towels for them.

Mikleo and Sorey sat together for a time in silence in the water, the former resisting the urge to use his power to splash his friend. Sorey looked like he was thinking about something, and he asked him, “Do you think Gramps is okay?”

“I don’t know,” Sorey dreamily responded. “Mikleo, I think he might be worried about us. We should try hard to be strong so he doesn’t have to.” Sorey took up Mikleo’s hands. “You and me and the whole world. We’ll go exploring together one day and we’ll come back and tell Gramps all about our stories and he’ll be so happy because we did it without getting into trouble.”

Mikleo smiled and agreed with him. They hugged each other, vowing to make Gramps proud. When Gramps returned to wash them up, they promised that they would do everything they could so what happened at the Mabinogio Ruins didn’t happen again. They would fight the hellions and protect Gramps and all the other seraphim instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know about you guys, but I actually never understood the concept of grounding when I was a kid. I just got a slap on the butt and my mom called it a day. XD Anyway, thanks for reading this fanfiction and stay tuned for more SorMik stories!


End file.
